As shown in FIG. 52, a conventional extruding gun 10a used for extruding a sealing material or the like from a tubular bag includes an extruding rod 28 having a pressing plate 42 at its leading end, a main body portion 14 which moves forward the extruding rod 28 by the action of a hand-operated means such as a lever 22, (or an electric-powered means), a tubular cylinder 16a which is removably mounted on the front side of the main body 14, and a nozzle 98 which is removably mounted on the leading end of the cylinder 16a via a nozzle mounting cap 96 The extruding gun 10a is designed such that a tubular bag accommodated within the cylinder 16a is pressed by the pressing plate 42 being moved forward along with the pressing rod 28 so that the sealing material or the like filled in the tubular bag is extruded from the nozzle 98. This conventional type of the extruding gun is disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 4-279458, 5-301064, etc.
This conventional extruding gun 10a for the tubular bag is used in the following manner. First of all, the nozzle 98 is removed from the cylinder 16a. The tubular bag is inserted into the cylinder 16a through the leading end portion of the cylinder 16a in a state that the extruding rod 28 is pulled rearward of the main body portion. After the leading end of the tubular bag is opened with scissors or the like, the nozzle 98 is mounted on the cylinder 16a. The setting of the tubular bag to the extruding gun 10a is completed in this manner.
With the operation of the lever 22 of the main body portion 24, the extruding rod 28 is moved forward so that the pressing plate 42 mounted on the leading end of the extruding rod 28 presses the sealing material or the like together with the tubular bag, whereby the sealing material or the like filled in the tubular bag is extruded from the nozzle 98.
This extruding gun 10a requires the installation of the tubular cylinder 16a, and thus has a disadvantage of an increased cost in comparison with an extruding gun described later in which a holding base is installed. Further, in this extruding gun 10a, when the extruding rod 28 is moved forward to press the tubular bag with the pressing plate 42, the film of the tubular bag may be bitten and clogged into a space between the inner wall of the cylinder 16a and the outer circumferential surface of the pressing plate 42. This biting of the film leads disadvantageously to the heavy and sluggish movement of the extruding rod 28 (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 4-271864.about.5).
An extruding mechanism associated with the extruding rod 28 in the extruding gun 10a is the same as that in an extruding gun 10 described later, and thus a detailed explanation therefor is omitted here.
As means for containing the sealing material, the adhesive agent or the like, a hard cartridge container is used other than the above-noted soft tubular bag. As shown in FIG. 53, the cartridge container 100 is constructed by a cylindrical container main body 104 and an extruding nozzle 106 which are integrally formed together. A slidable piston 102 is disposed within the cylindrical container main body 104. This cartridge container 100 is designed such that forward movement of the extruding rod 28 of the extruding gun 10 leads forcibly to forward movement of the piston 102 so that contents C, such as a sealing material, are extruded or discharged from the extruding nozzle 106. The extruding gun 10, which is used for extruding the contents C, such as the sealing material, in this cartridge container 100, only requires the installation of a semi-cylindrical holding base 16 instead of the cylindrical cylinder 16a that is required as an essential element in the extruding gun 10a for the tubular bag, since the sealing material or the like has been already filled in the hard cartridge container 100 and thus need not to use the tubular cylinder 16a. Accordingly, the manufacture of the extruding gun 10 is effected more easily and has an advantage of reduction in cost in comparison with the manufacture of the extruding gun 10a.
However, as a matter of course, the extruding gun 10 for the cartridge container 100 can not be used as an extruding gun for a tubular bag. Hence, under the present state of the art, the extruding gun 10a for the tubular bag and the extruding gun 10 for the cartridge container are manufactured and used individually.
For example, in a case where an extruding gun for a cartridge container has already been purchased and possessed, an extruding gun for a tubular bag must be newly purchased if the sealing material or the like in the form of the tubular bag is used.
Further, in a case where both of the film container and the tubular bag are to be used in a job site using the sealing material or the like, one kind of the extruding gun is insufficient and both of the extruding guns for the cartridge container as well as for the tubular bag must be carried to the job site.
On the other hand, in a case of the cartridge container 100, if the piston 102 is moved from one end to the other end and thus all of the sealing material or the like filled therein is discharged and used up, the empty container is discarded as it is. In a case of the tubular bag, if all of the sealing material or the like filled therein is discharged, the tubular bag is in a squashed state, and then discarded in this state.
Upon comparing the tubular bag with the cartridge container, the manufacturing cost of the tubular bag is lower than that of the cartridge container, and with respect to waste disposal, the cartridge container is bulky, whereas the tubular bag is convenient from the viewpoints of transportation and processing since the tubular bag is compactly squashed. The environmental contamination due to discarded wastes is a current world-wide problem. The amount of the discarded wastes of the tubular bags is remarkably smaller than that of the cartridge container, and thus the tubular bag is preferable from this point.
As noted above, the tubular bag is inexpensive, and advantageous from the viewpoint of the disposal thereof in comparison with the cartridge container, but the problem resides in that the tubular bag requires a special type of the extruding gun for extruding the contents from the tubular bag.
In view of the above-noted problems, the present applicant already proposed an extruding mechanism for a tubular bag and a method of extruding contents in a tubular bag, which enable the effective use of the tubular bag with a usual extruding gun for a cartridge container instead of the special type of the extruding gun (Japanese Patent Lain-Open Publication No. 9-314012).
In the above proposal, there remains room for improvement with respect to a mechanism for picking up and discarding a squashed and used up tubular bag, a mechanism for removably mounting a cylinder body inside of which the tubular bag is accommodated onto a holding base of an extruding gun and so on. Upon continuously studying with respect to these mechanisms, the present inventors have newly proposed improved mechanisms.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 54, an extruding mechanism for a tubular bag is known, which includes (a) an extruding gun 10 having a holding base 16, a stationary holding plate 46 disposed on the front end portion of the holding base 16, and an extruding rod provided at its leading end with a pressing plate 42 and arranged movably back and forth on the holding base 16, (b) a cylindrical member 11 having a cylinder body 82 capable of being set on the holding base 16 and accommodating the tubular bag F therein and opened at its both ends, and a piston body 83 slidably inserted into the cylinder body 82, and (c) a nozzle body 106 having a discharge hole 106a at its leading end, a through discharge passage 108 formed therein for contents C, and the rear end capable of being removably brought into contact with the leading end opening portion of the cylinder body 82, and removably mounted on the stationary holding plate 46.
In this case, the cylindrical member 11 into which the piston body 83 is slidably inserted is first prepared at the rear end opening portion of the cylinder body 82. In a state where the rear end of the cylinder body 82 is placed on the holding base 16 of the extruding gun 10, a tubular bag F is inserted into the inside of the cylinder body 82 through the front end opening portion of the cylinder body 83, and the leading end portion of the tubular bag F is cut and opened with scissors or the like. In general, in this opening work, the leading end caulking portion K, which is caulked with the use of a caulking member such as an aluminum wire or the like, remains attached to the leading end from the viewpoints of avoiding generation of wastes.
The caulking portion K attached to the leading end of the tubular bag F is a cause for the disadvantage such as leakage of the contents from the cylindrical member 11, since the caulking portion K narrows or clogs the flow path of the through discharge passage 108 of the nozzle body 106 during the course of squashing the tubular bag as shown in FIG. 54.
The present applicant proposed, taking the above-noted problem into consideration, a novel extruding mechanism for a tubular bag, which can avoid the inconvenience, such as the liquid leakage of the contents by preventing narrowing or clogging of the flow path of the through discharge passage by the caulking portion of the tubular bag (Japanese Patent Applicaiton No. 9-322826).
In the conventional extruding mechanism for the tubular bag, when the cylindrical member is set on the holding base of the extruding gun, the cylindrical member is necessarily set on the holding base in a state where the cylindrical member is brought into contact with the inner surface of a head adapter fixed to the stationary holding plate. In order to facilitate the insertion and attachment of the cylindrical member, a contact member such as an annular flange is generally provided on the inner surface of the head adapter. The presence of this type of the annular flange or the like requires the cylindrical member to be inserted into and attached to the contact member such as the annular flange in a state where it is held in parallel with the holding base as much as possible, and from a state in which it is spaced from the contact member such as the annular flange. Therefore, the operation of inserting the cylindrical member into the contact member such as the annular flange while setting the cylindrical member in the horizontal state as much as possible is troublesome. Further, the length of the holding member of the extruding gun must be set to be considerably longer than the length of the cylindrical member and thus the cost of the material is inevitably increased, and the extruding gun is inconvenient in handling.
Taking the above-noted problems into consideration, the present applicant proposed a novel extruding mechanism for a tubular bag, wherein the inner surface of the head adapter is turned obliquely upward, so that the cylindrical member can be very easily inserted and attached to the inner surface of the head adapter and set onto the holding base, the cost of the material can be saved because the length of the holding base can be set close to the length of the cylindrical member, and the handling of the extruding gun is facilitated because the entire length of the extruding gun can be made smaller (Japanese Patent Application No. 10-232588).
The present applicant has continuously made various investigations and researches on the above-noted and already proposed patent applications to further improve the performance, and provided a further proposal (Japanese Patent Application No. 10-204921). The present applicant now combines these three patent applications together and adds a novel improvement thereto to provide a new proposal as the present patent application.
A first object of the present invention is to provide an extruding mechanism for a tubular bag and a method of extruding contents of a tubular bag, wherein a sealing material or the like is extruded and discharged from a tubular bag with the use of an extruding gun for a cartridge container so that it becomes unnecessary to additionally purchase an extruding gun for the tubular bag if the extruding gun for the cartridge container is possessed, it becomes possible to continuously use a cylindrical member made up of a cylinder body and a piston body so that it is sufficient to discard only the used up tubular bag in the same manner as the extruding gun for the tubular bag, even after the contents of the tubular bag are extruded, only a nozzle body becomes stained and the inner surface of a head adapter is prevented from becoming stained, with the result that only the stained nozzle body is discarded after the extruding operations are carried out for predetermined times and the head adapter without any stain can be repeatedly used for many times to reduce the waste material amount that is a factor of generating the poisonous gas such as dioxin when incinerating the waste material, to thereby serve as one of the solutions for the environmental problems.
A second object of the present invention is to provide an extruding mechanism for a tubular bag and a method of extruding contents of a tubular bag, wherein an inner surface of a head adapter can be turned obliquely upward to make it remarkably easy to insert and attach a cylindrical member to the inner surface of the head adapter and set the cylindrical member on a holding base as well as to make it possible to set the length of the holding base close to the length of the cylindrical member to save the material cost and manufacture the extruding gun with the entire length shortened to facilitate the handling thereof, and by which the biting of the film of the tubular bag is effectively prevented to make it possible to efficiently use the tubular bag, and the narrowing and the clogging of the flow path of a through discharge passage by a caulking portion of the tubular bag is prevented to avoid the liquid leakage of the contents as well as the squashed and used up tubular bag can be easily picked up and discarded.